


Anchor Me

by Star_Nymph



Series: To The Moon and Back [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Asperger Inquisitor, Asperger Syndrome, F/M, Lyrium Withdrawal, Sick Cullen Rutherford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-05 01:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14605917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Nymph/pseuds/Star_Nymph
Summary: It was another spell of withdrawal and he wished he hadn't let her catch him like this.





	Anchor Me

**Author's Note:**

> This part of a bunch of short fics/drabbles I've kept on my tumblr and haven't put on here. Sorry if I'm spamming ya'll, it'll be over soon.
> 
> If you have any comments or helpful tips please feel free to write something. I’ll definitely appreciate the feedback! Thank you for reading!

It was another spell of withdrawal. If it was as he wanted, he would have collapsed in the safety and privacy of his loft where he might’ve kept the last shreds of his pride intact. As it was, the combined migraine and the fatigue hardly gave a damn about such a thing and seized him at their leisure, which so happened to be at his desk in the bright, revealing light of day. Cullen hadn’t even been able to process what his blurring vision had been the symptoms as he went down–only that he felt as if he was floating, which is not normal, and then nothing, which is also very not normal.

Later, he wouldn’t be able to tell you if it was a blessing or not that the Inquisitor came upon him in such a state (Maker, sprawled across the floor, face down, ass up, looking like a drunken oaf no doubt) rather than a scout or Cassandra. Vaguely he recalled the gray form of her approaching him, his sight swimming senselessly, and if he could have made heads or tails of anything, a part of him might have thought of her a demon from his memories, reaching to claw the skin off his face. Instead, in the short instant, he was awake, Eurydice had threaded her fingers through his hair and whispered something he didn’t understand.

Then, she was gone and without her touch, he lost his anchor to reality.

When he awoke next, his mouth was lined with the bitter taste of moss covered bark, his clothes had been stripped off og him, and there was the greatest of aches between his eyes. Cullen hissed and groaned, waving his hand in front of the rays of sunlight that were stubbornly trying to blind him. “Shit…” croaked out of him as he attempted to sit up, but his bones felt as brittle and soft as stale bread.

An ink covered hand pressed against his chest and pushed him back down to the mattress. “Stay.”

Squinting, Cullen looked to his side and found Eurydice seat by him. Her usually cloud of thick gray hair had been tied back into a hasty braid down her back, framing her sharp face in stray strands of silver. On her cheek and forehead were careless smears of black as she bent over her lap, where dozens of papers, scribbled on and clumsily doted with ink from the messy quill in her hand, covered her legs. He realized with a start that the papers had not the mark of the Inquisitor but the insignia of the forces at the top of it.

His paperwork.

Weakly he made a grab for them, “No…” He said through set teeth, “Your handwriting is atrocious…”

Eurydice didn’t look up. “Your face looks atrocious.” She signed another paper and dropped it on the rest of the papers. “There was too much paperwork here. You skipped a meal because of it…” This time she did look at him, her blank eyes somehow managing to give him just the right amount of shame.

Sheepishly, Cullen sucked on the inside of his cheek. “It was…necessary. The reports were meant to go out tonight–it was far more important than eating, Inquisitor.”

The quill stopped on the paper and Eurydice frowned, “Your death will help no one, Cullen.”

‘Death’, ha. That was an overreaction to be sure, yet he did nothing to dispute it. Rather he laughed darkly as he tried to move again, not a twinge of humor to it, and said, “A Commander is replaceable.”

A silence came that ate at the inside of Cullen’s chest and he had thought, somehow, his self-depreciation had offended her. But then she touched his cheek and her hand cupped his jaw, coaxing him to look at her. It stunned him in his half-awake state how she actually looked pained–that, stupid him, he hadn’t offended her but hurt her when he said that. She brushed her finger along his cheekbone, “A Commander is. You are not…not to me…”

Cullen’s breath caught in his throat and he knew he should apologize, but he couldn’t manage it. Her words had drained him of his strength and his voice. Eurydice didn’t say much else besides “Rest.” as she kissed the top of his head and guided him back down to the bed. When she let go to gather his papers and to bring them to Josephine, Cullen reached for her again, his jawline still tingling from her touch.

But he was bone tired and she was fleeing him, as she always did, and Cullen realized as he drifted off back into nothing that he didn’t want to be without her touch, without her anchor, ever again.


End file.
